Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 February 2005
PRAGMATIC DEVELOPMENT IN A SECOND LANGUAGE. Gabriele Kasper and Kenneth R. Rose. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002. Pp. x + 352. $36.95 paper.
The goal for this useful volume is to survey and evaluate research on pragmatic development of second language learners. In the first chapter, Kasper and Rose note that numerous studies in crosscultural pragmatics assess nonnatives' language use and contrast it with the performance of natives but that relatively few studies have focused on how language learners' pragmatic abilities change and develop over time. For researchers in SLA, however, this question of development is central.